64-bit OS's

After reading this thread:

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=242182

and having a lengthy discussion with my dad I have come to the conclusion that although OS's appear to be moving forward, they aren't really. They may be able to handle larger workloads now and may be faster, but i can't help but feel that a lot of this "improvement" is due to hardware, and the current OS's are just taking advantage of developments.

So it really is time for 64-bit OS's to be developed, and it appears that this is now happening if these two pages are anything to go by:

www.ibm.com/servers/aix/news/64bit.html

www.sun.com/solaris/

The questionsthat i have is, are these true 64-bit OS's, or are they still based on parts of 32-bit OS's. If they are true then what kind of advantages do they offer. How noticable is the improvements if there are any. Finally when is it likely that we will see 64-bit OS's for our personal computers and where do people think these OS's will come from, ie open source, or dare i say it,Microsoft :mad:

IBM's OS/400 has been fully 64-bit since ages already. It should be fully 128-bit by the end of the year (welp... they already said that last year, but anyways)...

Here's a quick link.

Well I dont personaly think 64bit is nessacery, we already waste enough memory as it is just because the microsoft programers are lazy. P.S. I have the right to call them lazy considering i am an assembly language programmer.

Well, AFAIK, the only difference between a 32 bit and a 64 bit OS is what platform it's been compiled on (of course the assembly language part would have to be different). So if that's the case, there are 64 bit linux distros, 64 bit Windows NT/2K/XP versions and tons of 64 bit unices.
Cheers,
cgkanchi

Ok so i was mistaken over the lack of 64-bit OS's, but are these only server based OS's?
i've had a look a brief look at the OS/400 and it reads like it has to run on the AS/400 server.

Quote:

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Because OS/400 is closely attuned to the AS/400 hardware design and generally comes as part of the basic package, there is no alternative operating system to compete with it.

---

from
http://search400.techtarget.com/sDef...331973,00.html

If i'm wrong please correct me.

I have also noticed that microsoft have now go a 64-bit XP edition:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.asp

Which they say is much better, can handle more of everything etc, but i never no how much to believe from them so if anyone knows what it's like, let us know!

I have also been having a brief read over some articles on 64-bit processors, most noticeably the itanium series and AMD's Hammer. here so what i really want to know is how do all these fit together. These processors have backwards compatibility, in fact i think Hammer is still x86 based, anyway, so if i had one of these and i was running a 32-bit OS would i notice any difference between a 64-bit processor and a 32-bit one or is a 64-bit OS needed to take advantage of the processors design?

Quote:

---

Because OS/400 is closely attuned to the AS/400 hardware design and generally comes as part of the basic package, there is no alternative operating system to compete with it.

---

That is probably because there is no OS/400 code available and the assembly is highly hardware specific. Since no one except IBM has access to the code, they can't write/compile the OS for any other platform.

The Itanium and the HammerHead processors are true 64-bit processors with the capability to run a 64-bit OS. However, due to either a hardware emulation layer, or some sort of a similar device, they can run 32-bit programs as well. This has been implemented because these are targeted towards home systems and anything targeted towards home systems has to be backward compatible.
As for Windows XP 64 bit Edition, it's made to run on Itanium, Sparc (I think) and the upcoming HammerHead processors from AMD.
Hope this cleared some stuff up.
Cheers,
cgkanchi

Edit: I just found out that the Itanium and IA-64 processors from Intel are true 64 bit processors with a compatitbility layer added for 32 bit while AMD's is a x86 based processor with 64 bit extensions.

OS/400 indeed is part of AS/400-systems (it is literally baked into the motherboard). Your client-computer can run whatever you want though (DOS, Windows, Unix, Linux, MacOS,...).

64 bit OS's have been available for a long time on the PC server and desktop platform. When NT workstation 4 came out it had a 64 bit version (PC 164 architecture from digital). There is just no demand for a 64bit system in the home market. I got my Alpha for $1000 new at the same time a comparable 32 bit system cost twice as much and was 1/4 as powerful (considering the MHZ on the Alpha was 2x higher and it was RISC based) and it could run any 32 bit program with out much drop off in performance still much faster then any Intel PII that where the top of the line at the time.

So we had a 64 bit system running windows NT workstation and no one bought it, the same will be true of this generation of 64 bit processors. The only reason I can figure out is that power has well out stepped software requirements and the need just isn’t there.

Ok then, so from what you guys have said 64-bit OS's have been here a while, but they only appeal to businesses, in particular large businesses that run large networks. for this a 64-bit OS is much better than a 32-bit one as it provides the server with more resources and therefore clients can send requests and get replies much quicker. For this purpose things like OS/400 running on an AS/400 have been developed. For that matter the two links that i posted earlier seem to be server OS's and not home use OS's.

But noone wants a 64-bit OS for personal use. This is because they are over powered for what a home pc would need, and there isn't much out there at the moment that a home user would want to run that would be noticeably better on a 64-bit OS than on a 32-bit one. So when will a 64-bit OS be needed. It would be short sighted to say that one will never be needed, afterall there was a time when it was thought noone would need more than a few hundred mega bytes? So has anyone got any ideas on what one might be needed for in the future for home use?

I'm not sure if any will ever be truly needed...by the time programing catches up with power I think we will moved away from a central do everything PC and into a lot of aplances that do one job well.

So youre talking more about the future homes where washers, fridge tv etc are all connected together. I think that will happen, and i don't think it will take as long as a lot of people think with wireless networks becoming widely availible, but i do think that there will always be a role for a pc, especially as its so versatile ie working, gaming, home cinema. nothing else offers such a wide variety of entertainment facilities in one box.

As to how fast programming moves compared to hardware, i think that it's a shame that hardware has accelerated so fast and software seems to have been left behind somewhat. It promotes lazy programming <cough> microsoft </cough>.

Going back to the 64-bit OS issue obviously no matter how fast hardware moves, software has to move aswell and it may be the case that companies making 64-bit systems force software companies to write 64-bit programs or face being left behind.

Am i even close to the mark here or have i gone off into my own little world?